Family Tree
by ImaginationInterpreter
Summary: The earth around it protected it, and it's branches sheltered memories. Happy and sad. New and so very, very old. One-shot.


Family Tree

Imagination Interpreter

* * *

-54XX-

"Oh, thank you so much, I bet there're a lot of people who'll come to see this!"

Rockman Volnutt just nodded politely as he accepted the exchange for the artifact. He'd brought the museum curator on Kattalox a rather unique find from another island's dig ruins in hopes of retrieving a previously donated piece. In all honesty he'd been a bit reluctant to give this particular relic up, but it seemed to be the only thing that caught the caretakers' interest enough to give up the desired item.

"Rock-kun, how'd it go?" A girl his age asked outside the museum. He climbed into the back of the spotter van that was permanently stationed on the island.

"Good, Roll-chan. She took the Petrified Wood Letters without a fuss. Well, the usual fuss. She let me have the Reaverbot Doll back, and more than enough zenny to get back to Yotenoki. For future reference, anything else we give her is going to be on loan to the museum; it's really bothersome to get back something that I left with the museum in good faith in the first place." The Digger sighed. "I just hope the reward for the Doll is worth it. "

"I'm sorry, I know you liked that rock, and I wish she'd have traded something else. At least the extra zenny will be enough to upgrade your Zetsabre."

"Yeah." He muttered half-heartedly. "I never did find out who 'RXL' or 'A' were."

"Honestly, you likely never will. You say they're letters, but they look like scribbles to me. It takes years for wood to petrify, and that glass-like stuff had to be embedded while the tree was alive." Roll smiled. "You saw how big around what was left of the stump was. And it was stone to the core, not just partial. I suppose we could try to go back to the dig site and find another piece to trade."

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but I don't think she'd take another portion. She was only interested in the wood _because_ of the letters." Rock finally smiled. "Or 'scribbles,' as you put it."

"There, you just admitted it yourself. It's a great find for any collector of oddities."

"I know you're right, but I wish I didn't have to trade it."

"That's because you're an odd collector yourself." Roll teased and laughed lightly when Rock stuck out his tongue. "Well, since you did make it clear that it was a loan this time, you will get it back someday. Now, let's head back to the Flutter."

"Eee Eee, at least you kept the data chip that was with it." Chirped Rock's hyper little mechanical monkey that only Rock could understand. "I don't know how long it'll take, but I'll do my best to decode it."

Maybe it was silly to be so attached to the relic, but there was just something about it. _Roll's right, I'll get it back someday._ Rock grinned broadly at the thought. He might yet find out who they were.

* * *

-24XX-

"Hey, Vent... Vent?" Darn this wind, her voice just didn't carry while on the bikes. Deep breath. "VENT!"

"Huh?"

Sure, his voice could drift back, but hers wouldn't carry forward. Dang physics. "Slow down a sec! And WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" She added when he turned to look at her. While still driving.

After slowing down enough so that the wind resistance would allow a conversation, Vent glanced at his delivery partner then dutifully looked ahead. "There's nothing for kilometers, Aile, you could go strait while blindfolded for an hour and not run into anything."

"You may as well be blindfolded, have you checked your radar at all in the last five minutes?"

"Why would I? Like I said there's nothing around for..." He trailed off abruptly as he glanced at his own radar. "Don't. Say. Anything." He stressed each word as he signaled to completely stop.

Aile settled for a smug look as they stopped and maneuvered her bike next to his so she could compare the blip that had been showing on her screen for the last six minutes. "So what do you think it is?"

He paused before answering, as he studied the screens and pulled up the time logs for the trip out. "No clue, we're in the middle of nowhere, and we didn't pick it up on the way to the customer."

"Well we are farther south than when we headed out. That ten minute ride to the outpost must have been just enough distance to bring it within range."

"Everyone always heads out from the community instead." Vent agreed. "I wonder how long it's gone unnoticed."

"You think it's dangerous? Irregular?"

"Could be. Why do you look excited? Just wait a sec." Vent ignored Aile's pout and pulled up the frequency for the settlement they'd left about an hour ago. "Calling community NE0743. North Eldergrove Vale, come in please."

"This is Tab, to whom am I speaking?"

"This is Vent of Giro's Delivery Service, I'm..."

"Oh, Vent! Aile too I presume. Thanks for bringing those parts here. Hopefully we can get our transserver fixed before your next delivery here."

Aile giggled. "Once the trans is fixed you hopefully won't need our services. We mainly do out-of-the-way deliveries, and as your Mayor already explained, Giro's was a lot less expensive than an airlift would have been."

"True, true. So what can I do for you?"

Vent responded. "Well, when we left, we decided to off-road cross-country instead of heading back up there to take the main road. We don't want to alarm anyone, but we're about an hour out from the outpost and we're picking up a blip on our radar."

"Hmm, about eight kilometers south of your position?"

Aile blinked. "Yea."

"Well I can promise you it's nothing dangerous. We as a community invite you to go ahead and take a look. We only request you keep it to yourselves. It's sort of a secret from the world's scientists."

"Huh?"

"You'll understand when you see. Tab out."

Vent frowned. "Well that was weird."

"I talked to her a bit while we were there, that's just the way she is." Aile smirked. "So, are you as curious as I am about that blip?"

"Why bother asking?" Vent responded with a wry grin of his own. "So, since it's not dangerous, want to race?"

"That's, that's..."

"Wow!"

"Yea."

"Your mouth is hanging open."

"So was yours."

"But I caught myself first."

"You're just upset that you didn't get here first."

"Not really, I can't stay upset after seeing this."

"Yea."

"You already said that, Vent."

Vent just nodded, neither of them had their heart in their usual banter, having given them temporarily to the sight in front of them.

"Want to go down there? I think I see a path over there."

"Sure." They parked the bikes at the start of the trail and headed down the trampled path. "It's going to be a bit harder hiking back up."

"True, but I don't mind, it'll be worth it."

"Definitely."

"Ya know… if we ever told Giro that we delayed our return to see a _tree_ we'd be fired." Vent chuckled.

"Nah, he'd never fire us for something like this. Especially if we could get him to come out here."

"We'd never get him to, well, we might. Do you think he'd like this sort of thing?"

"Most reploids do, I read somewhere that that was part of the reason they were created however many centuries ago. To help restore the ecosystem, since they could go more places than humans could."

"Makes sense, but it's kinda hard imagining a world without reploids, I sometimes forget that they haven't always been here."

Aile thought for a moment. "How fast do trees grow?"

"That's kinda random. I dunno, depends I guess, why?"

"Try to follow my train of thought. Look at how big it its."

"Okay."

"It has to be centuries old."

"Following you so far."

"How old is the reploid race?"

"...Wow."

"Agreed."

"...I think Giro would like to see this." Vent concluded.

They fell silent the rest of the slow, twelve minute hike down, each to their own thoughts. They finally reached the floor of the deep ravine, glanced at each other, nodded, and looked up. Way up.

"I know we both said it already, but, wow."

"I wonder what kind of tree it is."

"I read that Redwoods get really big."

"But it's not red, look at how green the leaves are. And the town is named Eldergrove."

"Maybe Giro could tell us if we take a leaf or two back."

"Which ever way, this is one big tree."

"Huge."

"Enormous."

"Gargantuan."

"Gargantuan? Is that a word?"

"It's in the dictionary."

"Bookworm."

"Ignoring that." Aile deadpanned. "Want to go see how big around it is?" She asked as she started for the base of the tree.

"How?" Vent was quick to follow. "We didn't bring a ribbon measure down with us, and as curious as I am, I am not climbing back up to the bikes just to get one."

"We'll approximate. How tall are you now?"

"I dunno, I haven't measured myself since this growth spurt started since it would be inaccurate in two weeks. Why?"

"I heard that a person's arm span is equal to their height."

"You _heard_, not _read_?" Vent teased. "And why me, don't you know your own height?"

"I know my own own height, it's just easier with two people to use this method of measuring. Well, we can still use it, we just won't be able to calculate it until we get back and measure you're height. You aren't growing so fast that it'll be inaccurate in a day. Ready to hug a tree?"

"To _what_ a tree?" Vent stumbled slightly.

"How else do you think I was planning on seeing how many Vent-and-Ailes around it is?" Aile grinned mischievously. "Mark the starting spot, stand up against it, then go fingertip to fingertip around till back at the starting point."

Vent groaned, then brightened as he thought of something, and smirked. "Or we can just ask the villagers. They've probably measured it."

"...Spoilsport." Aile mock-pouted for a second then giggled and smiled. "We can still walk around it, right?"

"Sure, I want to too." Vent smiled back.

They'd reached the base of the tree then and once again grew quiet. Some of the roots showed above ground but not enough to hinder circling it. They'd only gone about a quarter of the way around, though, when something caught Aile's eye.

"Hey, what's this?"

"What's what?"

"This right here, it looks like something was carved here."

"Looks like a heart."

"Oh, it _is_ a heart! With letters! How romantic!" Aile sighed. "And look it's been inlaid with glass so it won't scar over!"

Vent just rolled his eyes as Aile gushed happily. He looked at the tree trunk again and smiled thoughtfully. "RXL + A, that's an odd letter combination."

* * *

-22XX-

The Cyber Elf hovered in front of the large tree on the north side of a deep east-west running ravine. Looking at the letters he smiled sadly. Those were troubled times, better than now, perhaps, but still harsh. His energy was almost gone, but he wanted to see this one last time. This memory, this special, special, personal memory. The tree had gotten larger, flourishing, even as the land around it struggled to recover a second time. Even so, he smiled as he left. If he'd had the energy, he'd love to bring Zero back here. Even if the crimson reploid still didn't have all his memories, he'd like the story. Zero had played such an awful, wonderful prank on him.

* * *

-21XX-

"Sir, Commander X is going to kill you when he sees this." There was no doubt in the 0th's 2IC's mind that it wasn't a mater of 'if' X saw it, but definitely 'when.' "Not to mention Miss Alia."

"Relax. None of my other attempts to get those two to admit their feeling to and for each other have worked, even though it's painfully obvious to everyone around them."

"Painful is right I'm sure, and literally too. All the ones that I'm aware of have ended with you in the med bay."

"They'll thank me for it, eventually." The leader of the 0th frowned, unnoticed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "They shouldn't be wasting time. Not in our line of work."

"Did you say something, sir?"

"Nah, and I'm almost done, hand me that case there, would you?"

"This one?"

"Yea, that's the only one here."

"Yessir." The 2IC discreetly hid an eye roll.

"There we are, almost done." Zero grinned and stepped back to check his work. Then opened the case handed to him.

"Looks done to me... is that _glass_?"

"Nope, it's polygless. Put in a data chip with a date and time stamp too, for the records. Gonna fit it in so it lasts forever."

"_Polygless_! Time chip! *ahem* Sir, what would you like on your tombstone?"

"Oh, stop being so melodramatic. They're gonna love it. And admit that they love each other."

"Hey, X, when was the last time you visited your 'family tree?' A few months at least, right?" Zero casually asked, while inside he was grinning like that Cheshire cat from one of X's books. _Bait the hook, cast the pole_. He thought.

"Yea, it has been. What brings that up, though?" X asked next to him at the square cafeteria table, while Axl and Alia, who were also sitting at the table listened in sudden interest and curiosity.

_Hook_. "Oh, nothing much. But judging from our table mate's reactions you've never shown them."

"I've never shown you two?"

Both shook their heads negative. "Family tree? Visit?" Alia asked.

_Line_. "I'm surprised he never showed you." Zero feigned.

"Well, it's not exactly what it sounds like. A few years ago, before either of you signed on with the Hunters, there was some data found in an old computer that was suspected to have once belonged to Doctor Light. Most of the data was junk, but one file that was passed on to me had a short list of to-and-from teleportation locations. They had sub-notes, not of descriptions but personal stuff. Like 'fresh fish' that was to the docks, and 'news/media conferences.' That one didn't lead to anywhere that appeared significant, but the building ruins looked like it could have been a conference hall. Most of them were like that, interesting but uninformative." X paused for a moment before continuing, pondering the significance of most of the locations. "Then there was the location in grid NE0743, supposedly one of the worst hit areas. I honestly didn't expect to find anything there, especially with 'our tree' as the sub note. But I was being thorough, so I checked it out."

"What did you find?" Axl interrupted, almost out of his chair as he leaned forward in interest.

"And for that, kid, you get to wait." Zero openly smirked at the three 'huh?' faces at his table, and turned to X. "We all happen to have a day off this coming Monday, why not just show 'em? 'Sides the kid needs to learn patience..."

"But...!"

"AND to not interrupt." Zero continued and spoke over Axl. "If he wants to find out he has to wait and see. I've been there before; we can pack a lunch and make it a day."

"Sorry, Axl." X smiled at the pouting redhead. "I'm going to have to side with Zero on this one."

"Don't worry Axl, it's only a few days." Alia consoled. "And I'll be waiting too."

"So you'd both like to come?" X verified.

"Yes, please." Alia grinned, while Axl nodded vigorously.

_Sinker_. Zero grinned.

"Wow, oh wow!"

"It's hard to believe that just above the rim it's practically desert."

"I'm glad you like it, Axl, Alia." X grinned and he and Zero watched their two companions walk across the lush ravine toward the fair sized tree.

All four where wearing civilian clothes, Zero carrying the large pack that had the food in it. They'd rode double out on the land chasers, a good two hour trip from the nearest settlement. The first half hour had been a bit awkward, as Zero had grabbed Axl leaving Alia to ride with X. He'd been given not-so-subtle glares from the lightly blushing pair until they'd finally started up a conversation. X finally explained the apparent connections between the 'Light' computer, data file ages and locations, and most importantly that Dr. Light was one of the few people that would even have a teleporter. Whether or not the tree was planted by a Light had become irrelevant after X claimed it as 'his family tree.'

Now that they were getting closer to the tree, Zero paused for a second and adjusted his pack. "Hey Axl, can you give me a hand here for a sec?"

Predictably, X spoke up from beside him. "There's no need to call him over, I can help."

"X, look at him, he's acting like a tabby on catnip. This'll just take his mind off of this for the second he needs to knock him off his high. Why don't you go tell Alia what kind of tree it is? Axl just likes to look, doesn't care about the details as long as it looks cool." X just sighed and nodded as Zero remembered the metaphor he'd thought of the previous week. _Hook, line, and sinker. Now just to land the fishies_.

"X, this place is awesome!" Axl grinned as he passed X to help Zero.

X simple smiled back as he walked towards where Alia was studying something shiny on the trunk of the tree. Likely a beetle.

"So what d'ya need a hand with?" Axl asked Zero, still grinning.

"Eh, I don't, but I wanted to let the two of them to get to the tree first."

"Huh?" Axl's confusion was short lived as a sudden bellow nearly vibrated the ravine, and even loosened a leaf from the tree.

"ZERO!"

"Come on and you'll see." Zero flashed a rather unsettling smile at his young friend before schooling his face into innocent confusion. He turned and quickly strode the rest of the way to the others with Axl right behind. "X, is something wrong?"

"Don't even bother giving me that innocent act." A blushing X growled and pointed to the tree. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Axl snuck around an equally red Alia and, spotting the incriminating evidence, started beaming. He threw a discreet thumbs-up at Zero.

Zero just complied and dropped the act. _He really knows me too well_. "Since I know you could and would argue till nightfall, and despite my reputation for pranks, I would never have done this," He gestured at the tree. "If it weren't true. I know you, both of you, too well."

Both X and Alia somehow got redder, Alia from embarrassment, X from embarrassment and anger. But before X could act on the sudden urge to murder his best friend, a soft, hesitant voice stopped him.

"It... it's true? You do... like me?" Alia stuttered, a small, hopeful smile on her face. Her face was lowered, but she kept glancing up, too embarrassed to maintain eye contact.

And just like that, X's anger melted, and he paled. "Alia, I'm sorry, I..."

"I... I'm glad. I like you too." She finally admitted, and gave him a full smile.

X turned red again.

Zero smiled as they headed back across the wasteland at the end of the day, while Axl pouted slightly from behind him.

"All they did was talked, not even a little kiss."

"Give it time, kid. It's already taken too long in my opinion, but that's just the way they are. Getting them to admit their feelings was a step forward bigger than that tree'll ever get. Besides in case you didn't notice, they _were_ holding hands on the climb up." Zero glanced behind him to the trailing bike. _And if it's not my imagination, she's holding onto him just a little bit tighter than this morning_. Zero smiled just a little bit bigger and he confidently repeated himself. "Just give 'em time."

* * *

-20XX-

"Blues! Welcome back, guess what, that seed you gave me is almost a six inches tall now!" Rock waved at his older brother as he made his way up the shoveled path.

"What'd I tell you, water and light and time." Blues ruffled Rock hair and dismissed his own armor, leaving his yellow bandanna and revealing jeans, a red jacket and sunglasses. "Once the snow melts and spring officially sets in, I'll help you plant it."

"I didn't even think of that, where are we going to plant my birthday present?" Rock asked as they went inside.

"I've got a location in mind if you'd like to see it early."

"Can we?" Rock beamed.

"Sure, I'll even put the coordinates in the computer files so you can check it regularly."

"Can we go there now?"

Blues thought for a second and nodded. Minutes later they teleported onto the rim of a lush, secluded grassland, and Blues gestured. "Down there."

"Down there?" Rock echoed in confusion. "But, what about water?"

"There's a creek that runs through here from a natural spring, see the ice?"

"Okay, but what about light?"

"It's winter right now, but the sun will reach down there spring to fall, and the north side always has light."

"Weather?"

"Mild. A few wind storms occasionally, but almost always from the north. Plenty of runoffs too, so no flooding."

Rock pondered this for a few seconds and smiled. "It's perfect."

"Ready to head back now?" Blues asked. "Go on ahead; I'll catch up in a few minutes."

Rock nodded and vanished in a stream of teleportation light with a short "Later!" to signify Blues' unspoken promise to drop by before he dropped off the map again.

_I guess if this place represents me, than the tree'll represent Rock_. Blues looked down into the ravine. _Always did think this was a good spot for something to live a long life. But not because it's perfect though. It's protected, Rock, I promise._

* * *

-2010-Feb-11-

AN: Most of these sections don't have set time frames, but just in case there's any confusion: 54XX, Rockman DASH (Legends), between one and two; 24XX, Rockman ZX, anytime before ZX; 22XX, Rockman Zero, between three and four; 21XX, Rockman X, anytime after X8; 20XX, Rockman (Classic), anytime after four.

Oh, and my sister pointed out something that confused her, so I'll elaborate: Blues' ending thought isn't suppose to make exact sense. He's an enigma, and I had fun putting in a double-meaning. (And a triple-meaning that isn't even known to Blues.)

Crystal; Imagination Interpreter

Edit, March 19th, 2012: Fixed a few grammer errors and smoothed out Alia's reaction, much more in-character now.

Disclaimer: All Rockman characters referenced belong to Capcom and Inafune-san.


End file.
